You can censor the work, you can silence the people, but ideas never die.

A novel that was passed around in secret for 40 years after the author’s death, The Master and Margarita’s relevance as a challenge to censorship continues, with even its most recent film adaptation banned in Russia for the director’s support of Ukraine.

Based on Mikhail Bulgakov’s novel of the same name (and the inspiration for The Rolling Stones’ Sympathy for the Devil), The Master and Margarita is a tale of how art can get us through the darkest times. Set in the height of Stalinist paranoia, The Devil, Woland, and his entourage have come to Moscow to challenge censorship and shake up the literary elite. Featuring giant talking cats, the secret police, ancient Galilee, a doomed writer, a lost manuscript, and a woman who will do anything to save her lover’s story even become a witch. Written in secret under Stalinist Russia, it is a phantasmagorical challenge to censorship and oppression through the power of imagination.

An exciting collaboration opportunity, The Master and Margarita is an ambitious co-production between The Old Nick Company and our friends at Bad Company Theatre.